We are going to turn aside from the course that we've been following
in the earlier meetings, and for a little time this morning be
occupied with that which has been engaged in in this little while:
the Lord's Table. And I would ask you to turn to one or two
passages, firstly in the gospel by Mark, chapter 6. Mark 6 at verse
34: "And He came forth and saw a great multitude, and He had
compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a
shepherd: and He began to teach them..."

The gospel by John, chapter 6 at verse 4: "Now the passover, the
feast of the Jews, was at hand. Jesus therefore lifting up His eyes,
and seeing that a great multitude cometh unto Him, saith unto
Philip, Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat? And this He
said to prove him: for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip
answered Him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for
them, that every one may take a little." Verse 33: "The bread of God
is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life, life unto
the world. They said therefore unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this
bread. Jesus said unto them. I am the bread of life: he that cometh
to Me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never
thirst."

The first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 23: "I
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that
the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and
when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, This is My body,
which is broken for you."

When Philip estimated that 200 penny worth of bread would be the
very least to feed the multitude, he was putting the price far
beyond their human resources. To him it represented a very costly
undertaking to meet the need of that hungry multitude, those
scattered and hungry sheep without a shepherd. But when he had put
so large a value and estimate upon what was necessary, he was far
below the actual cost of what was represented; that is, the Heavenly
Bread. If he had multiplied a thousand times the 200 penny worth, he
would never have reached the cost and the value of that which was
symbolic at that time in the wilderness: the Bread of Heaven. That
which was in the mind of the Lord... He knew what He would do, the
Lord had in His mind the real meaning of what was taking place. And
what was in the mind of the Lord was infinitely more
precious than 200 pence multiplied many times. This indeed, from
heaven's standpoint, from the Lord's standpoint, was costly bread;
very costly bread, beyond the estimate of man. When the Lord
proceeded to take the loaves and break them and give them to the
disciples, at that time they little realised that they were called into
that costliness; that they were being brought into actual
association with the infinite costliness of the Heavenly Bread.

They had been called to minister in fellowship with His Son; they
little knew it, they little recognised it at the moment, but He
could have applied to this matter what He said in another
connection at another time: "What I do now thou knowest not; but
thou shalt know, afterward". "He took the loaves and brake... and
gave". What an infinite fulness is found in that word "and brake".
It's a pity that the revisers have taken from the text and put into
the margin the words, "broken for you". But as you notice, it was
there, and many authorities recognise that it was there, "My body,
which is not only for you, but broken for you" - the infinite cost
of that breaking.

And when He called them into partnership with this great breaking
and distributing, He was really only in a symbolic way calling them
into the fellowship of His sufferings which were to become the Life
of men. John gives us the full explanation of the incident in the
wilderness, the feeding of the multitude. Jesus explains His act
there. So what do we have? It is, in the first place, the infinite
preciousness and costliness of every fragment of Christ that is
offered to us. Every little bit, broken from Him, so to speak, and
presented to us, contains the great costliness of His redeeming
love, of His brokenness for our salvation. If at any time there is
offered to us through a life, through a ministry, a word, or in any
other way offered to us some small portion of Christ, as we have
taken the fragment this morning each one of us, if there is offered
to us a fragment of Christ, in every fragment there is embodied this
costliness of our redemption, this costliness of the
Life which He is and gives. This costliness in His
brokenness, it's there... offered to us.

Do you not feel, dear friends, that the ministration of Christ to
His people needs to be redeemed from the matter-of-fact,
matter-of-course cheapness of the oft-repeated hearing of His word,
receiving of that which really does represent Him? We have become so
accustomed to hearing, going and coming, going and coming through
the years, and hearing, and being offered, we begin to take it for
granted. And if we don't do that, I think I would find your
agreement if I said we don't recognise how infinitely costly
every fragment of Christ is that is offered to us. It's like that.
You and I need to be delivered from familiarity; the weakness of
familiarity. Christ, in a sense, needs to be redeemed from our lack
of appreciation of what any little bit of Him really does mean. That
is the first thing that comes to us out of this record. The
disciples did not at first realise what it meant that the Lord Jesus
put the fragments into their hands to give to others, but in after
life they did; you find that they realised that the ministry which
was committed to them was not only a costly ministry, but a ministry
of infinite importance. They entreated, besought, and prayed
that those to whom it was offered should be alive to what
was really being presented to them. They saw the tremendous issues
bound up with every little bit of Christ that they had to offer.
This is a word for us; to realise that when we take the loaf and
break a small fragment, in that fragment in a symbolic way is
represented all that the Lord Jesus had to give by His
death.

And of course, there follows this: the fellowship of His sufferings
is inseparable from any kind of ministration of Christ. To you this
may not carry very strong appeal, because you do know something of
it. I wish I could say this to a great number of those who have
ambition to be preachers, ambition to get into what is called "the
ministry". They think of it as something to gratify their own
ambition in life. They go out, display themselves, take hold of it
for themselves, make it serve their own glory: a reputation for
themselves. The fact, the fact is if what we have read means this,
that the fellowship of Christ's sufferings cannot be separated from
any ministry of Christ, any true ministry of Christ, that ministry
must be born out of a real fellowship with the Lord in His
suffering. The brokenness must be transmitted from Him, to
all who would serve Him. This again was something that these
disciples came to know afterward. And that day, that day outside,
the multitude, and the distribution through their hands, how little
they understood what they were doing or what the Lord was doing and
what the Lord meant by this; how little. But they were baptised into
His sufferings later, and out of that baptism of His passion which
they shared, came their ministry. And it was therefore ministry impregnated
with the very passion and travail of His soul. It became, for them,
a soul matter; not a professional thing which they were paid to
carry out, not even a duty; but something which wrung their
souls in many a Gethsemane where they had before God to say,
"Not my will, but Thine" at very great cost.

Now this, of course, has two sides. I'm not speaking to a lot of
preachers, those who would call themselves "ministers" (although it
is such a mistake to put certain people into that category and leave
the rest out, we are all ministers of Christ in some way) it works
both ways; to us as those who are, every one of us, called upon to
give something of Christ to this world of need and to His scattered
and hungry sheep; to give something, in some way - by life, by word,
by act, to give. But if it is going to be effective, it will be just
exactly as His giving of Himself was effective, on the same
principle: it costs. It just costs. Anything that is of any value,
costs. If we want our lives to be channels and vehicles for the
transmission of something of Christ to others, let it be understood
that such ministration of Christ necessitates a fellowship with Him
in His suffering, and will explain why the Lord brings us
into that fellowship, why the suffering, why the trials, the
adversities, the afflictions of so many kinds. Why? That we should
have something of Christ to give that carries the real value of our
Lord.

Well, we could say very much about why much ministry does not go
very far, does not count for very much. Those in it are not prepared
to pay the price. Well, it works that way so far as our calling to
minister Christ to others is concerned, it will inevitably come out
of experiences of suffering and affliction if it is going to be as
effective as His has been.

On the other hand, in the other way, dear friends, is not this a
call to us for a new evaluation of everything and anything
that really is Christ? If the Lord really does give a word which is
the content of Himself, carries Himself in it, it really behooves us
to recognise that this is not something which we can regard lightly.
There is here the potential of His own infinite suffering; a new
appreciation of any ministry that is a ministry of Christ. We say,
"Easy come, easy go"; that ought never to be true of our
relationship to the Lord, either as from Him to others, or as from
Him to ourselves. The receivers must enter into His suffering as
much as the givers, if there is to be value.

This is but a brief word, but it's just an emphasis upon this one
thing: He took, He brake. He gave the brokenness to them. He gave of
His own brokenness to them that they might minister Him in
all the virtue of His sacrifice to others. It's a word of
comfort because it explains very much. It explains very much, it
explains why the Lord brings us into that fellowship of His
passion, His sorrow, His suffering, His disappointment, His
reproach, His despising, His rejection, His loneliness... and
everything that went to make up His brokenness. He brings us into it
in some way or other, if we are going really to serve Him. It
requires broken ministers to minister a broken Christ.

And if we are really to come into the good of every bit of Christ
that comes our way, presented to us, we shall only do it along the
path, the pathway, of His suffering. There has to be something that
happens between our hearing, between it being offered to us and it
becoming a return movement to His satisfaction. Something has to
happen. We take our food and presently our food becomes our action;
but something's happened between. Something's happened between; that
food that we took at our meal is going through a breaking up and a
breaking down process - you don't know what's going on, or you do
sometimes know what's going on in your bodies when you've had a
meal; some don't, but some do - that there's a mighty struggle going
on, that's all being broken, torn to pieces, changed and transmuted.
Something's going on between the taking in and then the giving out
in energy. Before what we receive of Christ and what we have to give
can be made effective, there's something that's got to go on in us:
real battle within over this thing, a real conflict over that word,
a real challenge set up in us; the transmuting from the thing
received, to the thing turned to vital energy. But is that true
always of the congregation? The congregation comes together and the
Word is preached, the sermon is given, the hymn is sung, and up and
out until the next time. I'm afraid that is true very largely and
very often. It's not for me to judge, of course, but having some
long experience of that sort of thing, one has so often had to ask
the question, "What was the good of that pouring out? What has
resulted from it, that giving which was costly giving?" And one has
so often to say, "Well, it was just taken; perhaps forgotten." And
then another time, and yet another, and no battle over it. No
exercise over it. No costliness in experience related to it.

If you and I are really going to be built up with the increase of
Christ, it will be just in this way: "He took the loaf and break it"
and break it! That is, He took Himself and was broken;
broken. Oh, the anguish, the suffering, the sorrow, the travail of
that breaking of Him... that we might come into the good of it and
might have the good of it for others. The Lord make this not only a
word perhaps of correction, perhaps of enlightenment, but a word of
comfort for that's what we need as He takes us through trial,
adversity and sufferings of various kinds - one this way and another
that way - and we feel that it is a breaking process. We realise
that it is in order that we shall have something really vital
to give, for the Bread which comes down from heaven is for... the
information? No. For: "the life of the world".